A PHP IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a programming code editor that lets developers create their PHP projects in a more productive way. PHP IDEs not only make it easier for developers to write code but can also perform other common tasks like PHP code debugging and performance profiling and optimization.

What makes an IDE the prefect tool for one developer may not meet the needs of another. A set of features, the look and feel are all subjective to the user as to what makes the best IDE. The primary goal with these comparisons is to provide just the facts, without bias, so that you can make a decision based on your own needs.

Great effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of these charts by not only doing our own research but also inviting the developers to review them and provide their own feedback for consideration.

Due to the extensive list of features being compared, the charts are broken down into several categorized tables. Some of these tables are wide, so use the horizontal scroll to ensure you are not missing out on some of the data.

This is a live article. This means that the article will be updated once and republished here again once there are relevant updates to the features of the currently listed IDEs or others that may not yet be listed.

The following IDEs are available under Windows, so you can evaluate and determine which one is the best for you looking at the comparison tables below: Codelobster, Eclipse PDT, Komodo IDE, Netbeans, PHPEd, PHPStorm, PHP Tools and Zend Studio.

The following IDEs are available under Mac, so you can evaluate and determine which one is the best for you looking at the comparison tables below: Eclipse PDT, Komodo IDE, Netbeans, Nuclide, PHPStorm and Zend Studio.

All PHP IDEs that work on Linux support the most popular distributions. The following IDEs are available under Linux, so you can evaluate and determine which one is the best for you looking at the comparison tables below: Eclipse PDT, Komodo IDE, Netbeans, Nuclide, PHPStorm and Zend Studio.

Auto Complete = Code suggestions presented and completed, relevant to the current contextHighlighting = Code colorized to simplify locating specific elementsFolding = Code blocks can be expanded and contracted (hidden)Hinting = Similar to Auto Complete, properties are also displayed for functions and methodsRefactoring = Restructuring code for better readability and complexityMapping = Display of declarations used, mapped to their originFile Compare = Comparing 2 or more files and highlighting the differences in them

Since several of the listed PHP IDEs are commercial, their producers were kind enough to share codes that allow you to buy their IDEs with a discount. Here follow the coupon discount codes for each of the PHP IDEs.